Your Providence Public Library

Providence Public Library is an essential agency of public education and crucial to the infrastructure of the Rhode Island community. We are one of the few major libraries in the United States that is a private not-for-profit institution governed by a Board of Directors, giving us the flexibility to respond to community need rapidly and effectively. More...

Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger by David Kennedy (1970)

In this 1970 book, Kennedy embraces the medical, legal, political, and religious dimensions of the subject and helps to pioneer the emerging field of women’s history. It is a highly critical study of Sanger’s pre-World War II career that can still be appreciated by readers in today’s society. It is not a true autobiography of Margaret Sanger, but a chronological listing and explanation of the events that occurred involving the American birth control movement for which she was a crusader. To fully understand Sanger’s involvement in the birth control movement, Kennedy lets us know who Margaret Sanger was and the events that caused her to become a leading birth control advocate, feminist, and activist.